1. See, for example,The Buddhist Religion, by Richard H. Robinson and Willard L. Johnson, and their chapter on "Soteriology and Pantheon of the Mahayana," (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Publishing Company, 4thEdition, 1997.)
2. The Oxford Dictionary of World Religions, edited by John Bowker, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997).
3. Ibid.
4. A note about the use of diactrical marking for Sanskrit words commonly used in English, such as Mahayana and Shiva. I have chosen to omit all diactrics here, primarily because their use for a general audience is not helpful and only confuses the reader.
5. The image of theNatarajais from the private collection of Ted Peters.